The Russians, Trump and the Deep State (Rising)

People talk of the Deep State, a kind of shorthand to refer to the entrenched parts of the government, particularly inside the military, intelligence, and security communities, who don’t come and go with election cycles. The information they hold, and their longevity, allows them to significantly influence, perhaps control, the big picture decisions that change the way America works on a global scale. Who the enemies are, where the power needs to be applied, which wars will start and what governments should fall.

One of the features of the Deep State is that it prefers to work behind the scenes, in the shadows if you like. The big name politicians are out front, smiling for the cameras, and the lesser pols have to tend to the day-to-day stuff of government. The Deep State doesn’t trouble itself with regulating agriculture or deciding which infrastructure bill to fund. That is in large part why there will never be a full-on coup; why would the Deep State want to take on responsibility for the Department of Transportation?

When the Deep State does accidentally expose itself, it is often by accident, such as in the panic right after 9/11 when the president was sitting around reading a children’s book while Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld were calling the shots. Same for in the 1980s when a set of cock-ups exposed U.S. arms sales to Iran to pay for U.S. proxy forces in Central America while with U.S. support the Saudis paid for jihadists to fight in Afghanistan, laying the early groundwork for what would become the War on Terror.

Forget for a moment what you think of their actions, but pay attention: both our domestic intelligence service (the FBI) and our overseas intelligence service (the CIA) played significant roles in our election. Still not sure what the Deep State is? It’s that.

Forget what you “agree” with, and focus on what happened. In July the FBI exonerated Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing in connection with her private email server. Yep, there was highly classified material, but that didn’t matter. Nope, the Russians and/or everybody else never hacked into her server, and nobody on her staff ever clicked Podesta-like on a phishing link. Nothing to see here. And then in October the FBI swung again and said well maybe there was something to see, buried conveniently on known-idiot Anthony Weiner’s laptop already in their possession. Funny about that. Anybody seen once marked-to-go places Huma Abedin lately?

As for the CIA, they managed to leak like Grandpa’s adult diapers throughout the campaign that Trump and Putin… something. Trump owes money to Russia. Trump’s computers communicate with Russia. Trump’s advisors work for Russia. Trump wants to build hotels in Russia. When none of that really stuck, it turned out the hacks into the DNC servers were done by Russians — in cahoots with arch-villian Julian Assange — ordered personally by Putin to elect Trump. All because Trump was Putin’s stooge, as the argument completed its circle.

UPDATE: When last week’s intelligence community report that “proved” the Russians did the DNC hack failed to really do much past a news cycle or two, it should be no surprise at all that this week a leak dropped on CNN that the Russians may have “compromising material” on Trump. Now, that leak supposedly came from anonymous sources from a classified synopsis included in a version of last week’s report that was based on allegation made public in the summer but only very recently “confirmed” by a former British intelligence officer who worked privately doing opposition research for an unnamed Trump Republican opponent.

If Trump could not be defeated, he would be delegitimized. Overnight the left/liberals/progressives/whatever turned into red-blooded supporters of the CIA and 21st century Cold Warriors, with anyone from that one asshole on Facebook you argue with to Pulitzer-prize winning journalists who disagree, labeled as Russian stooges, spies, fellow travelers and the like.

The result? A new Cold War, sold to the American people over the course of about a month.

When the Soviet Union collapsed and the old Cold War wrapped up, there was left a gaping hole for the Deep State. They nearly literally had nothing to do. Budgets were being cut, power in Washington defused. 9/11 was a helpful and timely accident; the War on Terror would provide the much-needed Cause to blow up spending and reconstruct status and power.

And the War on Terror started off with great promise for the Deep State, dovetailing nicely with long-sought Conservative projects such as remaking the Middle East and controlling the Persian Gulf. The future was wide open, Afghanistan a stupid but necessary prelude to the real first act in Iraq.

But despite the power of the Deep State, mistakes are made and nature finds a way. The War on Terror became a global clusterf*ck. Failures accumulated: Iraq and Afghanistan, of course. Libya, Syria, the messy Arab Spring, relations with Pakistan. You can’t really trust any of those folks to get it, we want a war that doesn’t end but looks good. Beheadings on TV simply stir people up at home and there is not much we can do about them.

Now, to be fair to the War on Terror, it had a good run. It normalized domestic spying and the omni-presence of security everywhere in America, and set up a nice bureaucracy to manage all that in Homeland Security. It got Americans used to see armed military, and militarized cops, on the streets.

But what was needed was a global struggle that made us look like we were winning without it ever ending.

If only there was some sort of model for that…

The Russians. Every American fear rolled into one guy, Putin, who might as well come from a Hollywood super-villian workshop. Unlike messy terrorists, who wanted, whatever, Sharia or a Caliphate, damn foreign words, Russia wanted old-fashioned territory, stuff on maps like Crimea and the Ukraine that mattered not a whit to America, but could be played domestically as Struggles for Freedom (C). The Russkies had troops with actual uniforms, and all the old propaganda materials were laying around. The Russians also knew how to play ball, blasting back through their RT and Sputnik channels nobody really watches but are right there to label as threats to our democracy. The Russian version of the Deep State knows a good deal when they see one, too.

Clinton was the perfect figurehead, already warm friends with one of the last dessicated Cold Warriors, Henry Kissinger, and already more than predisposed to cast the Russians into their role. Trump, well, he didn’t seem to get it, and, when it was becoming clearer he might win, he needed to be made to get it. The Deep State appeared to have some internal dissension; that publicly popped up when it appeared the FBI and CIA were not sure which horse to back in the latter days of the campaign and how to do it. Hey, mistakes were made, sorry, even the Deep State is kinda human.

Well, it was messy and dragged on past the actual election, but everything is settled now. The intelligence report that just came out made things clear: Russia is the bad guy, Trump now the cuck of the Deep State, things are back to “normal.” Funding will pour into the military, intelligence, and security communities. Since the war will be a cold one, the U.S. can declare periodic victories just like in the old days over things like the Olympics, chess matches, dissidents saved, spy stuff We Can’t Tell You About but will leak out anyway. We can have proxy wars and skirmishes that seem like huge deals but can usually be managed in scope. Any troublemakers at home, in or out of the White House, can be labeled Russian sympathizers on CNN and Maddow and dealt away quickly.

Overall, the 1950s weren’t that bad now were they?

BONUS: One currently outstanding question is whether the manipulations of the Deep State in our election became public by accident, such as after 9/11, or whether someone (us? Trump? Putin?) was meant to see them for some purpose. Hang on to that question.

MORE BONUS: Yes, yes, this is all conspiracy nonsense. The moon landings were faked and 9/11 was an inside job by the Mossad. There is no Deep State, or Trump really is a Russian Manchurian candidate, or the spiders from Mars are actually pulling the strings or I am reading those weird Geocities-like websites for preppers and soon will be posting cheesy animated GIFs of flags waving, whatever. I’m also a Russian, or Edward Snowden, or being paid by someone to write this. Whatever you need to tell yourself, and you should never believe what I say and say how sad it is that this is what I’ve come too. I’ll kill a puppy in your honor. Thanks!

Recent Comments

Rich Bauer said...

1

Deep State is like the Mafia but the Mafia doesn’t kill women or kids. You forgot to mention the DS biggest success operation- the Anthrax letters that delivered a message to those who resisted their “patriot act” . Obama got the message. That is why he did this:

An amendment to the intelligence spending bill sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) calls for the anthrax murder case to be re-opened and a foreign connection to be investigated. It passed the House.

But rather than get to the bottom of what really happened and whether the U.S. still remains vulnerable to a biological terrorist attack, Megan Eckstein of the Frederick (Maryland) News-Post reports that Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag sent a letter to four congressional leaders on March 15 rejecting the probe and suggesting that if this measure remains in the intelligence spending bill, Obama may veto it.

Funny report. Starts with a disclaimer that “this report is provided ‘as is’ for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.” Heh. But that isn’t enough to make anyone in the media or Congress stop reading the fucker right there, noooooo, they want to BELIEVE, praise Jesus!

So we go on to read pages of nonsense about how Russia is generally bad on principle, how hacking happens with deplorable regularity, and how Russia inserts propaganda broadly across the US consciousness via news sites like RT. RT [Russia Today], we are told, actually had the temerity and audacity to cover the following topics during this and past election seasons, all of which prove their anti-American stance and pro-Russian propaganda purposes: they covered the Occupy movement, third-party candidates and their platforms, fracking, voter suppression and voting irregularities in the US system. They also – damned Russkie bastards! – had some articles that covered the actual content of the DNC emails.

There are lots of “we assess” in the report, but no facts are offered at all to back up the “assessments”; there is not even a hint of whatever forensic methods might have been used to support the so-called assessments. There is zero information about how the agencies collected their data or came to their conclusions.

The appendix, which is about half the entire declassified report, is merely a reprint of a CIA report from December 2012. It says so right there in the freaking report – this isn’t some secret info or rumor I got from the Inner Webs.

However, the Report does offer some advice as to how we might avoid such interference and hacking and such shit in the future: we need more surveillance, more collection of on-line and telephone communications, more spying on everyone around the globe and we need to punish the Russians.

Whomever leaked or hacked (it was leaked, not hacked, BTW) the emails in question and gave them to Wikileaks supposedly cost Clinton the election by …..wait for it, and this isn’t in The Report…..simply revealing the truth about her stances and the actual facts about how the DNC manipulated the primary electoral system. We can’t have that, now, can we? Imagine if Truth got some headwind in the public arena, dear lord, it would be the end of all these wars in diverse places and the end of a shit-ton of political careers, and whatnot.

Also not in the report:

Millions of minority voters were purged off the rolls in this election. There are questionable tallies in numerous districts. These may have actually cost Clinton the election, but the Dems are sticking with the stupid Russian angle. Very weird.

Also not included in the report:

“[…] Levin, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie-Mellon University, found that the U.S. attempted to influence the elections of foreign countries as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000. Often covert in their execution, these efforts included everything from CIA operatives running successful presidential campaigns in the Philippines during the 1950s to leaking damaging information on Marxist Sandanistas in order to sway Nicaraguan voters in 1990. All told, the U.S. allegedly targeted the elections of 45 nations across the globe during this period, Levin’s research shows. In the case of some countries, such as Italy and Japan, the U.S. attempted to intervene in four or more separate elections.

“Levin’s figures do not include military coups or regime change attempts following the election of a candidate the U.S. opposed, such as when the CIA helped overthrow Mohammad Mosaddeq, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, in 1953. He defines an electoral intervention as ‘a costly act which is designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one of the two sides.’ According to Levin’s research, that includes: peddling misinformation or propaganda; creating campaign material for preferred candidates or parties; providing or withdrawing foreign aid, and; making public announcements that threaten or favor certain candidates. Often, it also includes the U.S. covertly delivering large sums of cash, as was the case in elections in Japan, Lebanon, Italy, and other countries. […]”

The part of the report on RT is comic. Reading it in isolation (from reality) you’d get the impression that RT is on 24/7 in every home, school and public place in America, and its contents used as brain implants. I bet even the Russians are surprised how important they are in the US media landscape. What bullshit

A former senior F.B.I. agent who ran the anthrax investigation for four years says that the bureau gathered “a staggering amount of exculpatory evidence” regarding Dr. Ivins that remains secret. The former agent, Richard L. Lambert, who spent 24 years at the F.B.I., says he believes while it is possible that Dr. Ivins was the anthrax mailer, he does not think prosecutors could have convicted him had he lived to face criminal charges.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Tennessee last Thursday, Mr. Lambert accused the bureau of trying “to railroad the prosecution of Ivins” and, after his suicide, creating “an elaborate perception management campaign” to bolster its claim that he was guilty. Mr. Lambert’s lawsuit accuses the bureau and the Justice Department of forcing his dismissal from a job as senior counterintelligence officer at the Energy Department’s lab in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in retaliation for his dissent on the anthrax case.

Rich, are you aware that Roscoe Bartlett hasn’t been in office since he was beat by John Delaney in 2012?

It took us decades to get rid of ole Roscoe and he was so universally loathed (he had criminal probes into his campaigns and was known as a slumlord of the highest order) that the REPUBLICANS gerrymandered him out of his own district.

Now we are stuck with Delaney, (nominal D – MD), a neoliberal corporate-stooge Democrat. But then, no other kind of politician seems to run for office around these parts. Or any other.

Ole Roscoe is living off-grid in West Virginia. Literally. He and his wife live in a cabin with no electricity or running water; although he works for some tech company that is helping prepare for cyber attacks that might take down the US grid, etc. Obviously, he doesn’t work from home. He’s a “prepper”, as they say. Actually, since he is a 7th-Day Adventist, I suspect he is simply just waiting for the Rapture.

Some of us retired Vietnam veteran dirty-fucking-hippy expatriate ex-patriots have to sleep at least a few hours a day, so we cannot watch RT for 24 straight hours on the Internet. But a few hours each day, seven days a week? Definitely.

If the Russians worked FOR the DNC, then 0KAY they did try to influence the election:

The Brooklyn Clinton command believed that television and limited direct mail and digital efforts were the only way to win over voters, people familiar with the thinking at headquarters said. Guided by polls that showed the Midwestern states safer, the campaign spent, according to one internal estimate, about 3 percent as much in Michigan and Wisconsin as it spent in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. Most voters in Michigan didn’t see a television ad until the final week.

I wrote a comment, but Russian state-sponsored hackers hacked my computer and deleted it on your website. The NSA, which surveils our communications internally against its official mandate, witnessed and did nothing. They also did nothing when Chinese hackers stole our OPM information (ok now this is true), but hey we aren’t Hilary so who cares, right? Free pass for the Chinese

A Westmoreland jury on Thursday found the county housing authority negligent for the 2013 carbon monoxide poisoning death of a Monessen woman.

The jury awarded the family of 77-year-old Sandra Troilo more than $868,000 in damages, including $750,000 for pain and suffering.

Westmoreland County Judge Chris Scherer, at the start of the three-day wrongful death trial, ruled the housing authority was a state agency — a designation that caps damages at $250,000.

Alan Silko, the Troilo family’s lawyer, said he would not appeal that ruling.

Troilo was found dead Feb. 4, 2013, in her efficiency apartment at Eastgate Manor. The family’s lawsuit against the authority claimed she died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by faulty ventilation in the apartment.

“I’m happy for the outcome, but this was never about the money. My mother’s name is cleared. I wanted to know first how it happened and why,” Robert Troilo said following the verdict. “I have no grudge against the housing authority.”

The family maintained Troilo’s apartment was improperly ventilated and, although she used her open oven to dry an undergarment, her death was caused by the inability of fresh air to flow into the unit through newly installed, energy-efficient windows and a tight seal on the front door.

Silko told jurors the housing authority violated the terms of its lease with Troilo that required the agency to ensure the apartment met all local and federal regulations, including provisions requiring it to be safe and free of unhealthy air.

“The housing authority needs to hear they were negligent. What they did cannot be excused. They need to be told there are consequences for what they did,” Silko said in his closing argument.

The housing authority argued Troilo was responsible for her death by using her gas oven improperly to dry clothing. It presented testimony from an engineer who said the apartment’s ventilation was sufficient.

“They provided an appropriate apartment for Mrs. Troilo. They did not foresee the oven would be operated with an open door,” authority lawyer Paul Mazeski said.

Troilo’s apartment, which had been vacant for several years after her death, has since been leased, said Michael Washowich, the housing authority’s executive director. Following her death, the authority replaced all gas ovens in Eastgate Manor with electric stoves.

“Obviously, we respect the verdict and acknowledge there is no winner or loser in a case such as this when one of our elderly residents tragically losses their life. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the entire family,” Washowich said.

Bet these assholes would not have tried this if there were carriers still there.

Do these assholes not realize…. They are dealing with the United States Navy ?????

Just STUPID……. But…. At least we know the US public education system is not the only one that is failing.

…..

Jan 09, 2017
In the latest incident of high-seas tension between the U.S. and Iran, a Navy destroyer fired a series of warning shots at four Iranian vessels on Sunday after the Islamic Republic’s boats closed in at a high rate of speed in the Strait of Hormuz, FoxNews.com confirmed.

The USS Mahan tried to tell the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard boats to stop via radio communication, but the vessels didnt respond to the request, prompting the destroyer to fire three warning flares, a U.S. defense official said.

In addition, a Navy helicopter dropped a smoke float.

The Iranian boats approached to within 900 yards of the Mahan, which had been escorting two U.S. ships.

That fact pattern has renewed calls from experts who believe the FBI needs to extend some greater level of scrutiny to people who appear threatening but whose actions do not merit a traditional criminal investigation.

FBI officials are strongly pushing back, arguing that Santiago’s interactions in Anchorage are the kind that happen in FBI offices across the country nearly every day, and that the bureau has neither the resources nor the legal mandate to track such people.

John Cohen, a Rutgers University professor and former counter terrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security, has long argued that the FBI should borrow a page from the Secret Service, which regularly monitors and assesses people, including mentally disturbed people, who have voiced threats against the president.

Peter van Buren was placed on the Secret Service watchlist, but the FBI was too busy to put a terrorist on it.

The worst mistake Americans ever made was to convert the federal government into a national-security state. We should have fought the communists with freedom and limited government, not with a national-security state. As the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans, the Chileans, the Guatemalans, the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Egyptians, and so many others have discovered, it is impossible to have a free and prospering economy under a warfare state. As Americans are finally realizing, ultimately a national security state leads to the destruction of freedom and to financial bankruptcy.

Donald Trump should do America and the world a favor. He should ask Congress to dismantle the CIA, the Pentagon, and the NSA and restore a constitutionally limited-government republic to our land.

Last week… Wednesday night/ Thursday morning… For a preset appt…..I was going to work…. VERY early… About 2am…

So…. As I stop by my office…. Then the bank(cash)…..and…. As I’m at the ATM….. And the blue lights come on…..

And the nice state trooper….spends 20 minutes chewing on me for “overly bright headlights”…..

Then asks for my driver license…after his 20 minutes of chewing…… (guess he got a surprise when NCIC came back with “don’t mess with this guy” )….

I kind of understand….just a little…. How this guy feels, in the following…..

Somehow….. I’m thinking the one I had the run in with is kind of hating life….. After I saw his boss earlier today.

A Roseville, Mich., man is becoming Facebook famous after he posted a picture of a ticket he received from a Roseville cop for warming up his vehicle in his owndriveway.

Nick Taylor posted the sarcastic Facebook post on Thursday, thanking theofficerwho gave him the ticket. According to the picture, the ticket is for his car that was left running in the driveway with no one around.

“I’ve never heard of any city ordinance oflawlike that,” Taylor said.

On Thursday, it was frigidly cold and he wanted to keep his car running while he ran into his girlfriend’s house. But he left it unlocked with the key in the ignition. Chief James Berlin said that’s a problem.

“This is purely a public safety issue. You can’t do it. You see it all the time, people hop in a running car and Steal them. Something bad happens when that occurs,” Berlin said.

The post received thousands of comments and shares since he posted it.

“I mostly just put it online to see what people thought of it and see if it’s happened to anyone else because I’ve never heard of this,” Taylor said.

The ticket shows ordinance listed as 99006 but there is no ordinancein the cityor state that corresponds to 99006. Under the description of the offense, it lists VEH/MOTOR ON UNATTENDED 895. Ordinance 895 is listed as being part of ‘rodent control’ on Roseville’s website.

FOX 2 contacted the MichiganStatePolice for more information. Lt. Mike Shaw says there is no state law that prohibits letting your car idle with the keys in the ignition.

At this point, it seems difficult to decipher which code the officer was enforcing. Either way, Nick has an appointment on January 26th in District Court in Roseville.